Breaking the Last Lock
by aceliterature
Summary: It was a visit that Aura Blackquill had dreaded. Oneshot.


Author's Note: The encouragement I received fueled me to write another oneshot, this time set after Dual Destinies. I do hope you like it, and please feel free to review/comment! I love hearing from you all! Cover art taken from zerochan, picture no. 1613023

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"Visitor for you, Ms Blackquill."

Aura stood up from her prison bed - well, it was more comfortable still than the makeshift sleeping bag she had often used when she'd pulled an overnighter at the lab - and stretched her legs.

Simon, she guessed. _It's almost cute, he was here yesterday as well. Probably misses the atmosphere in the clink. _

The guard took her arm as he escorted her out of the cell, causing her to snort lightly. _I'm not a flight risk, idiot_. She held her head high, despite the weariness that was tugging at her since the day her brother was freed from prison and the chains he himself had wrapped around his soul, while she had paid the price for forcing a retrial as well as she had to deal with losing the justification for hating Metis' little princess. But as they neared the visitors' room, Aura got a glimpse of yellow on the other side of the glass. _Oh no. Oh for heavens' sake no. Everyone but her._

There was no escape now. The guard let her sit down and went out of the room, completely oblivious to the anguish that this visit was causing his prisoner.

Athena had not been sure if visiting Aura, the woman who had spent seven years hating her, was a good idea. But she knew instinctively that now that she had come that far in unraveling and making peace with her past, she needed to do this like she had needed to face the phantom in court, staying strong and staring down the self-proclaimed abyss that had taken her mother - and as a consequence Simon, the one that would've had protected her to the bitter end - from her. So she didn't waver when she saw Aura's slight shock that quickly turned into a scowl on her face. She knew Aura was vulnerable under the many layers of bitterness and contempt, and there was a part of her that wanted to help that woman, no matter how hard it was for her. She remembered that incredible feeling she had had when Mr. Wright had drawn the truth out of her in court - that flood of different emotions that had ended as relief. He later had said something about breaking locks in her soul; though she didn't quite understand what he had meant by that, she thought it was at least a nice metaphor for what had happened to her. And now she wanted for Aura to experience the same because she knew that even if her mother's colleague had managed to make peace with most of the things that had happened, after the Phantom had been locked away for good, there was still a lot to be unraveled, "locks" to be broken, in her soul.

"What do you want?" Out of habit, Aura didn't make any effort to be polite. She didn't even quite know how to be polite to someone she'd spent the last seven years hating.

Athena just looked at her and Aura knew that the girl in yellow could _hear her heart_. It made her even more uncomfortable knowing that her emotions weren't hers alone at that moment.

Athena indeed was listening intently to the things that Simon's sister held in her heart. She noted the fleeting anger, panic, helplessness, and it suddenly almost embarrassed her that she was able to see so deeply into a soul that wasn't hers.

"I just want to talk. Alone. Last time, there were others there and I know we still have unfinished business."

_I'm not ready for this_, Aura thought. _I still can't even look the girl in the face_. She averted her gaze again after trying to force it to stay on her visitor's eyes.

"Look", Athena said gently. "I know how you suffered. I know how you layered bitterness over bitterness in an attempt to escape the pain. I know how you must have felt those seven years. And you know, I'm not even angry with you. How could I be? In the end, I myself thought I killed my mom. And it was only through you and your actions that day that we finally unraveled the truth."

"I... I just..." Aura found herself stuttering for a moment before regaining her facade again. "Well, you should be grateful for that, princess. In more ways than one, because if my brother had really been executed..." She left the rest of the sentence unfinished, intending for the implied threat to be all the more effective.

Athena pitied her. She understood how hard it must be to deal with the vacuum that remained after the hate was gone - for she heard no real anger in Aura's voice anymore. Just a trace of it, and she was pretty sure it wasn't directed at her.

"You don't need to be angry with yourself either."

"I'm not. I'm just tired and don't know what I should discuss with you."

"The more you say that, the more discord I hear. Why don't you face the rest of your demons? You already faced most of them, as I can clearly see."

"Oh, shut up with that jibber jabber." _Simon rubbed off on me_.

"Damn it, Aura." Athena's countenance started to wear thin, making the images of Aura's emotions in her head even more vivid, and causing Widget to flash red. "You can't even look at me without averting your gaze after one second. I know you're angry with yourself for a lot of things. I can see your sadness, it is perfectly understandable. I remember you telling the court you were lost since you didn't have anything, anybody to hate anymore; I guess that made you angry at yourself as well. And I really do get that you can't just feel positive about the object of your long bitterness and hate in such a short time. But please, at least confront it like you confronted everything else, and admit it."

"I confronted it! I was in court! I am not that bitter twisted something anymore, and now there is nothing left to say!" Aura's voice rose. She had enough of psychology, enough of "feelings". _I like robots for a reason. They have no emotions except for the ones we give them._

"You're not, that's right. You've already come a long way. But you're still not able to look at me because you feel ashamed now, not angry or bitter."

Aura twisted her hair round her finger, her face relaxing for just one moment, and Athena knew she had hit the nail on the head.

"I rather feel like I feel nothing. I don't know what to do or say because nothing matters any longer. All the things that kept me going, like my vow to finally prove it was you that killed the woman I felt so...strongly for, are now gone. Simon is free, and now I have to deal with the fact that you were not a monster, but fought for him in a way I never had thought possible. And.., I just can't. I said I started to trust you lawyers a bit. Well, I trusted you as a lawyer. But I don't know how I can find it in me to trust you as a person after hating you so long, and that's why I can't look at you." _Why am I saying this? It's not as if she couldn't already see through me, now I even look like a dullard. Weak. I sound weak._

Yet, Athena just smiled. "See? Some of the discord is already gone. You're doing great! And I believe in you because I know Mom believed in you - I still can remember how well you guys got along... I even drew you, her, Simon, and the robots as a family back then. You were a positive person once, I just know you can be one again! You will struggle, like I have struggled so much, but there will be a day where that will all lie behind you."

Somehow, these words seemed to have done it. Athena could see the shock and surprise; the anger level spiked, but was starting to get replaced by all the sadness that was still left. And then, suddenly, the green happiness icon began to flash. Just a bit, but enough to bring another smile to her lips. Analytical psychology was indeed a great tool. And she saw how she could describe this right now as breaking a lock.

"I guess a part of me still couldn't forgive you for being the reason I lost my brother as well." Aura said after a long pause. "He was so stubborn in his samurai pride that the anger that should've been directed at him for taking the blame...got pinned on you, even after his release. He still isn't the same Simon he was before...before all of this happened. Not that I expect him to behave like a normal person anyway." She tentatively gave one of her trademark scornful grins.

"See? That wasn't so hard, acknowledging that there still was a residue of the problem. And now we can work on eliminating these feelings, like in a long counseling session."

Aura snorted, but it was more of a sad laugh than an expression of contempt.

"You sound like Metis when she tried to fix an error in the robot framework", she said. "She always talked to those things that way." For the first time in seven years, she managed to look Athena in the eye and was shocked how much of Metis she saw. She remembered what the spiky haired lawyer, Wright, had told her after the trial - _the people close to us live on in some way, may it be through their immaterial legacy or through other people. _

Athena gave her a big smile, and was even happier to see that Aura genuinely smiled back at her, even if it was a brief expression, and her mouth soon quirked into the usual slightly contemptuous grin. _I guess old habits really die hard_. Still, she knew that it would be possible for her mother's colleague to regain at least some of the happiness and balance she once had before she started spending her nights crying; after all, most of the discord in her heart was gone, and Athena felt that Aura had begun to understand her by understanding herself as human.

"Well then, I guess my time is up", she said after a short pause. She didn't want to say anything else, in order not to disturb the frail bond that had developed between her and Simon's sister.

_It will take some months, perhaps even years. And it will have to be tiny steps. _

Aura called her back as she turned to leave.

"Slap Hunk of Junk for me, will you? Simon said that thing misses me."

_But in the end - we all will be fine_.


End file.
